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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, October 11, 2002

US Virginia Gas Shooting Linked to Sniper: Police

The fatal shooting of a man at a gas station in Virginia is linked to the string of sniper shootings in the area, US authorities said Thursday.


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The fatal shooting of a man at a gas station in Virginia is linked to the string of sniper shootings in the area, US authorities said Thursday.

"Ballistic evidence has conclusively linked this shooting with others in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area," the Prince William county police department said in a statement.

Dean Harold Meyers, 53, was shot and killed at approximately 8:15 p.m. Wednesday, just after he had finished pumping and paying for gas at a gas station in Virginia's Prince William County, a suburb of Washington, D.C.

Since Oct. 2, the sniper has killed seven people in Washington and its Maryland and Virginia suburbs. A woman and a 13-year-old boy were wounded in the shootings. Two of the earlier sniper victims were shot at gas stations, three of the shootings occurred in the evening and each of them was hit with a single shot.

Prince William County Police Chief Charlie Deane said today the autopsy revealed the Meyers had been shot once through the upper chest.

Police are looking for a white minivan that looks like a Dodge Caravan, with windows only at the driver's and front passenger's seats. At least one witness told police that he saw that kind of vehicle leaving the scene of the shooting Wednesday night.

Authorities have offered a reward of 305,000 dollars for information leading to the arrest of the sniper. The Secret Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), US Marshals and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms have joined state and local police in the investigation.

A tarot card with the words "Dear policeman, I am God" was found near a shell casing outside the school where the boy was shot Monday.

A man driving a blue full-sized pickup truck was arrested Thursday after firing a gun at a woman driving on a Maryland highway, but it was not clear whether the suspect was the sniper, police said.

The driver arrested was described as a white male in his mid-20's, but his behavior did not fit the pattern of the sniper, police said.


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